Archive for May, 2007
In a surprising new development, the family that controls Dow Jones now says it will meet with Rupert Murdoch and consider his $5 billion offer to buy the company. The Bancrofts said the family “remains resolute in its commitment to preserve and protect the editorial independence and integrity of The Wall Street Journal,” but had also concluded that “the mission of Dow Jones may be better accomplished in combination or collaboration with another organization, which may include News Corporation.” The first line of the WSJ story on the new development reads, “Dow Jones & Co.’s 125-year history as an independent media company could be nearing an end.” Dow Jones shares soared in after-hours trading, especially with speculation that Murdoch may boost his offer even higher.
Update from the NY Times: “According to people close to both News Corporation and to the Bancroft family, there are no immediate plans for the meeting, but one family member said it would be ’sooner rather than later.’”
Update: Dow Jones shares jump on the news.
The full statement from the Bancroft family follows below…
Read the full post May 31st, 2007
Terry Heaton has a sneak peek of an upcoming Borrell Associates report on local online ad spending. “The days of easy online money for traditional local media are over,” reads the report. “After a decade of upselling their print and broadcast advertisers, many sites began experiencing significantly slower growth in online advertising in 2006 and early 2007.” Borrell illustrates the tremendous growth among the pure plays in local advertising (up 22 share points in two years alone). Newspapers lost 8 share points (Borrell calls this “huge”), and TV sites gained 5 points for a total of a 7.1 percent share of local online ad dollars. The report goes on to say that local media companies are realizing that simply upselling from TV will not sustain growth, and the new model “is beginning to look more like a stand-alone business with separate staffs and network affiliations.” For our faithful readers, all this isn’t a surprise, as I’ve written frequently about the upcoming storm for local media companies on the web. TV sites are still minor players, and pure plays are taking it to the bank. Stay tuned for the Borrell report, due out in a few days.
May 31st, 2007
San Diego
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Former CNN, MSNBC and ABC anchor Willow Bay (whose husband is Walt Disney CEO Robert Iger) is now editor-at-large of HuffingtonPost.com. She’ll focus on the site’s new lifestyle section. By the way, I like how HuffingtonPost.com has evolved from a design perspective. Very readable for quick-browsers like me.
May 31st, 2007
By the way, if your TV station (or newspaper) has launched a new site or major new section recently, drop us a note. As you know, Lost Remote has been very outspoken about the urgency for local media to aggressively launch new online products in local niches, and we love to share good ideas. You can see list of recent new sites listed here, and I’ve added it as well in the right column as “New local sites.”
May 31st, 2007
WOOD-TV has debuted SearchWestMichigan.com as a search and entertainment site that combines business listings with local events — all mashed with Google Maps. Businesses can sign up to add, expand and customize their listings. “Once an account holder is approved, they can add their events and businesses and tie the two together,” explains WOODTV.com’s Dave DeJonge. “In this way, the community is building the content while we manage, present and monetize it.” While basic listings and events are free to submit, businesses can pay to include graphics, more keywords, a longer description, additional URLs, featured results and custom web pages. Featured listings on the main page are also for sale at varying prices.
TV sites have been non-players in the lucrative paid search category, and WOOD-TV’s effort is certainly a step in the right direction to tap into some of that revenue. The site was built entirely in-house — not an easy build, by the way — and I would imagine WOOD-TV will roll it out to other LIN stations soon. Press release below…
Read the full post May 31st, 2007
Nielsen released the first look at its “commercial ratings” today. With 17 percent of the nation’s TV viewers armed with DVRs, 10 percent of broadcasting primetime programming is now time-shifted. When you combine time-shifted numbers (out to three days) with live numbers, Nielsen said it increases the overall commercial ratings for many shows. For example, The Office jumps from 3.11 to 3.36 among the 18-49 demographic. This is no surprise, as previous ratings didn’t include the time-shifted ratings, and not everyone who watches shows on DVRs are skipping the ads, so there’s a net increase on paper. But when all is said and done, the simple fact remains: people with DVRs skip most of the commercials, and DVR penetration is climbing fast. You do the math.
May 31st, 2007
FUEL TV, Oxygen, SPEED, Sundance Channel and TV Guide will be part of the NBCU-News Corp. online joint venture when it launches later this summer. Press release…
Read the full post May 31st, 2007
The Minneapolis station and its site Kare11.com have just debuted a new talk show called OnLIVE. It airs live every weekday, both on TV and the web, at 4 p.m. “What’s great about this is the immediacy,” said Cindy Chapman, the show’s executive producer. “If viewers have something to say during the broadcast, they will be heard, and that’s a first for local TV news.” Viewers (called “viewsers” on the show) can participate via email, chat and live webcams. When the show is not on the air, the live chat converts into a message board, and you can watch an archived version of the show. Coming in June, OnLIVE will feature a “backpack journalist” they call a “VPJ.” Online, KARE11.com’s OnLIVE section is clean and well-designed, and it features 16×9 video of shopping tips, fashion trends and parenting ideas, as well as a blog, of course.
I watched a few minutes of the first show, which focused on introducing the interactive features of OnLIVE. Chapman sits just off to the side of the set monitoring the chat and selecting user content to put on the air.
ONLive has many similiarities to NBC owned-and-operated stations’ iVillage Live. The challenge with live, multiplatform programs is balancing interactivity with the demands of producing a compelling TV show. Interactivity for interactivity’s sake can end up diluting content and derailing the flow, yet it can be a powerful element when seamlessly integrated. Kudos to KARE for taking on the challenge. Let us know what you think in comments below. (Thanks everyone for your tips on this!)
May 31st, 2007
(This article originally appeared in the May 29 edition of the AR&D Media 2.0 Intel Report) Here’s a humbling exercise for you: go to Google, and enter the name of your city and then the word “weather.” I can promise you that your station won’t come up first. It probably won’t come up in the top ten and it likely won’t even be on the front page. And if you’re not on the front page of a Google results list - forget it. You won’t get the traffic. There is an easy and inexpensive solution to this, however: buy some Google (or Yahoo or other search engine) keywords.
Read the full post May 30th, 2007
Beginning in a couple weeks, you’ll be able to browse, search and watch YouTube video on your TV set through Apple TV. “This is the first time users can easily browse, find and watch YouTube videos right from their living room couch, and it’s really, really fun,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. Sweet. Also, Apple said it will offer a build-to-order Apple TV unit with a 160GB hard drive — four times the capacity of the current model.
May 30th, 2007
San Francisco
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Days after management announced a 25 percent staff cut in the newsroom, Managing Editor Robert Rosenthal resigned. “I really want to be in a situation where I can build something rather than take it apart,” Rosenthal said. “It might be a newspaper or it might be a new kind of news organization. I think it’s time where the skills we have as journalists can be applied in a different way. The business model for newspapers is clearly broken.”
May 30th, 2007
KNTV’s NBC11.com has launched Reporters’ Notebook, a blog-style series of news updates posted by reporters in the field, mostly via email. As of this writing (5 p.m.), there are 15 updates for today alone — one of the most concerted contributions I’ve seen by TV reporters online to date.
May 30th, 2007
Portland, OR
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Virginia Beach, VA
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A major breakthough: You can now buy some songs from the iTunes store that don’t have copy protection. The tracks are in the section called “iTunes Plus,” which is launching with songs from the EMI Group. The DRM-free songs cost a little more - $1.29 instead of the usual 99 cents. But they are encoded at a higher quality and are compatible with non-iPod music players. Plenty of impressive acts here, too: Pink Floyd, Paul McCartney, The Rolling Stones, The Beach Boys, Erasure, Joss Stone, Norah Jones, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra and lots of acts I probably would know if I were hip. (The download requires a software upgrade to iTunes 7.2.) Why so huge? A few reasons. Apple benefits from selling songs to the non-iPod crowd, obviously. But also, it was running into trouble with European regulators who saw its DRM as a monopoly on downloadable music. EMI is just the first label - but this is clearly the direction in which Apple wants others to go.
May 30th, 2007
CBS has laid out $280 million in cash for the UK-based Last.fm, a music social network. Last.fm has 15 million active users, and has a search engine that analyzes what you listen to and then makes recommendations for playlists, creates personalized radio stations and connects you with members who share your tastes. (They call the tech “Scrobbling.”) But what about the debate over internet radio fees? From ZDNet:
… while CBS may have just acquired a social-media site that’s managed to stay clean in regards to copyright, the congressional debate over a scheduled increase in royalties paid by Internet radio sites will undoubtedly come into play soon. CBS has a big enough purse to pay those royalty fees, but such a situation would make Last.fm less profitable.
(Via TechCrunch)
May 30th, 2007
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